I 


JIM 

6524 
/V159C 


MILYOUKOV 

CONSTITUTIONAL 

GOVERNMENT  FOR 
RUSSIA 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


i.  I.,  No.  3  Prick,  10  CENxt 

Constitutional 
Government  for  Russia 


^n  Address  Delivered  before  THE  CiVIC  FORUM 
in  Carnegie  Hall,  New  York  City 
January  14,  1908 


BY 

PROFESSOR  PAUL  MILYOUKOV 

Member  of  the  Third  Duma  for  St.  Petersburg 
WITH   PORTRAIT 


New  York 

THE   CIVIC   FORUM 

23  Wbst  44th  Street 

1908 


■lU'JSOY  LtSnA.: 


NOTE 

Professor  Mlh-oukov  made  the  Journey  from  St.  Peters- 
burg to  America  on  the  Invitation  of  The  CIVIC  FORUM.  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  dellverlnjt  this  one  aJdress.  He  remained  In 
America  but  three  days,  helnn  obliged  to  hasten  back  to  Russia  In 
order  to  be  present  when  the  Duma  resumed  Its  sessions  after  Its 
three  weeks'  recess  at  the  time  of  the  Russian  Christmas.  At  the 
meeiinc  In  CamoEle  Hall,  when  this  address  was  delivered,  Right 
Rev.  Henry  C.  Potter.  Bishop  of  New  York,  acted  as  Chairman. 
The  Hall  was  crowded  to  Its  utmost  capacity  by  an  audience  which 
numbered  nearly  four  thousand  persons,  representing  the  most  In- 
fluential elements  In  the' city.  The  address  made  a  profound  Im- 
pression, and  at  Its  close,  on  motion  of  Hon.  Elgin  R.  L.  Gould. 
President  of  the  New  Nelhe»land  Bank  and  formerly  City 
Chamberlain,  a  vote  of  sympathy  and  appreciation,  and  of  thanks 
to  the  speaker  was  unanimously  carried. 

On  the  following  evening.  January  15.  Hon.  Herbert  Parsons. 
Member  of  Congress  from  New  York,  gave  a  dinner  and  reception 
In  Washington,  In  honor  of  Professor  Milyoukov.  There  were 
present  as  guests  on  this  occasion:  three  members  of  President 
Roosevelt's  Cabinet,  namely.  Hon.  William  H.  Taft.  Secretary  of 
War;  Hon.  James  R.  Garfield,  Secretary  of  the  Interior;  and  Hon. 
Oscar  S.  Straus,  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor ;  Hon.  Robert 
Bacon.  Assistant  Secretary  of  State;  Hon.  William  Loeb  Jr., 
Secretary  to  President  Roosevelt;  Hon.  Joseph  G.  Cannon, 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives;  Hon.  Sereno  E.  Payne, 
leader  of  the  majority  in  the  House,  and  over  one  hundred  othei 
members  of  the  Senate  and  the  House,  besides  many  other  promi- 
nent officials  of  the  national  Government.  In  Introducing  Pro- 
fessor Milyoukov.  Congressm.m  Parsons  said  that  he  was  certain 
that  this  leader  of  the  Constitutional  Democratic  party  of  Russia 
had  the  complete  sympathy  of  every  member  of  the  Government  of 
the  United  Slates.  This  statement  was  received  with  prolonged 
applause  by  all  present. 


ruM 


iTKiUty 


Constitutional  Government 
^  for  Russia 

^     Four  years  ago,  when  I  first  came  here  to  address  an  Amer- 
l^lcan   audience  on   Russian   affairs,   Russia  was   approaching   its 
\;politIcal  downfall  and  I  tried  to  unveil  some  threatening  symp- 
■^^toms  under  the  then  placid   surface  of  things.     On  my  second 
trip  a  year  later,  I  hardly  had  time  to  complete  the  picture  by 
pointing  out  the  urgency  of  radical  reform,  political  and  social. 
We  were  already  in  the  rapids  of  the  year  1905 — the  year  of 
^he  Russian  Revolution.    This  year  brought  with  it  a  real  down- 
fall of  the  autocracy,  by  the  well-known   Manifesto  of  October 
^30th.     Some  people  thought  then  that  the  reasonable  aim  of  the 
^movement  had  already  been  attained,  since  Russia  was  thence- 
^forth  to  be  a  modern  constitutional  state.    Others  took  the  event 
^as  a  new  departure  in   the  direction   of  something  larger   and 
unprecedented.     But  few  foresaw  that  the  success  achieved  was 
the  highest  mark  to  be  recorded  by  this  flood-tide,  or  that  after 
some  few  moments  of  surprise  and  bewilderment,  a  descending 
^course  would  set  in. 

o     This  was  our  case.    The  obstacles  rose,  more  and  more  threat- 
^eningly,  until  now,  after  two  years  of  struggles,  after  two  Dumas    • 
dissolved,   we   find    ourselves    in   a    sort   of   political    whirlpool.  ^ 
Whether  or  not  a  natural  outlet  will  be  discovered,  whether  the 
flood  will  follow  a  quiet  course  or  rush  toward  new  cataclisms, 
who  can  foretell! 

The  uncertainty  in  the  great  struggle  of  modern  Russia  could 
not  fail  to  slacken  the  general  interest  in  it.  People  have  grown 
weary  from  the  too  many  details,  and  have  gradually  lost  sight 
of  the  final  aim  of  the  movement.  Of  those  who  were  enthu- 
siastic admirers  of  this  struggle  for  freedom  in  its  dramatic  be- 
ginning, there  are  few  who  know  how  to  preserve  their  keen 


O^/i  ^/3  '^ 


lntorr»l  nmldst  nil  \l»  entangled  devilopmonts.  Of  the  many 
mlUIons  who  cnsi  a  fiigltlvp  slanco  at  the  glorious  cataract  when 
the  nvolutlon  was  at  Its  height,  how  few  are  there  who  care  to 
follow  the  disorderly  course  of  the  waters  down  the  gorge! 

Now.  ladles  nnd  gintlotncn.  you  may  acoomi)any  one  who  has 
tftkeD  Boim  i.iil  In  the  events.  My  eonipnrlson  of  the  waterfall 
luny  Iw  R  disadvnntngrous  Introiluetlon.  But  recently  one  of 
your  writers  In  this  country  threw  upon  me  personally,  as  a 
leader  of  the  Constitutional  Democratic  party  (that  Is,  the 
Cadets),  the  rrsiwnslblUty  for  the  failure  of  the  two  first  Rus- 
sian Dumas.  Were  this  true,  It  would  make  of  me  as  your  guide 
this  evening,  a  very  unreliable  guide  Indeed. 

Of  course  an  excuse  was  kindly  found  for  mc — the  excuse  of 
being  an  "idealist" — a  complimentary  term,  I  suppose,  for  "Uto- 
pian." This  Is  far  better,  certainly,  than  to  be  characterized  as  a 
"conspirator,"  a  "revolutionary,"  or  even  an  "anarchist,"  as  one 
of  my  countrymen  in  this  country  was  recently  called.  But,  I 
mtist  confess,  not  one  of  these  terms  appeals  to  my  political 
taste.  In  a  certain  sense  I  cannot  object,  and,  I  hope,  nobody  can. 
to  being  called  a  political  Idealist.  Even  in  this  country  of 
practical  politicians,  where  politics  and  realism  have  long  been 
synonymous  terms,  there  are  times  when  idealism  enjoys  a  certain 
currency.  When  a  great  cause  is  at  stake  and  great  issues  are 
being  fought  for,  political  Idealism  is  never  wanting.  In  fact, 
I  think  that  a  real  idealism  is  hardly  ever  superfluous,  and  I 
am  quite  sure  that  you  are  not  the  people  to  make  this  term  a 
reproach. 

In  any  case  what  is  called  idealism  in  a  country  of  practical 
politicians  may  pass  as  very  sound  realism  in  a  country  of  po- 
litical dreamers;  and  what  is  realism  in  times  of  general  out- 
break, may  become  idealism  when  the  flood  recedes  and  stagna- 
tion sets  in.  I  hope  thai  you  will  take  these  circumstances  into 
consideration  before  you  "locate"  me  definitely. 

The  party  to  which  I  belong,  which  was  the  leading  party  in  the 
first  two  Dumas,  has  always  kept,  up  to  the  last  moment,  at  the 
center  of  political  movement.  Some  of  our  enemies  consider 
our  policy  too  radical,  while  many  others  find  it  too  moderate. 
But  everyone  opposed  to  the  policy  of  the  Constitutional  Demo- 
cratic party,  has  found  it  particularly  dangerous  for  this  very 
reason,  that  it  has  kept  within  the  reach  of  practical  possibilities. 
Precisely  for  this  reason  the  party  was  particularly  hated  and 
feared  by  both  extreme  currents  of  the  Russian  movement — by 

4 


the  reactionaries  as  well  as  by  the  revolutionaries.  Both  extremes 
appealed  to  violent  methods  of  struggle  and  were  busy  preparing 
new  stroli.es  and  counterstrokes,  which  our  party  tried  to  make 
unnecessary  and  impossible.  And,  of  course  were  the  constitu- 
tion to  strike  root  in  Russia  and  v>'ere  quiet  to  be  secured  by  large 
.social  reforms,  what  hope  would  remain  either  for  a  restora- 
tion of  autocracy  or  for  a  social  overthrow?  That  is  why  our 
enemies  on  both  sides  have  used  violent  means  in  the  endeavor  to 
thwart  the  political  course  which  our  party  has  chosen. 

As  a  result,  we  must  admit  that  our  position  as  mediator  is 
now  vei*y  much  weakened.  Other  parties  much  more  conserva- 
tive than  ours  now  play  the  role  of  peacemakers.  Unfortunately, 
r.e  cannot  find  their  good  services  quite  disinterested.  Nor  do 
we  find  general  reconcilation  to  be  acceptable  on  their  condi- 
tions. The  order  of  things  they  are  likely  to  bring  about,  we 
cannot  expect  to  be  either  coiistitjitional  cr  democratic.  We 
believe  that  the  political  situation  they  are  going  to  create  will 
be  extremely  unstable,  being  too  much  of  a  compromise  with  the 
autocracy  and  the  nobility.  And  as  this  situation  is  likely  to 
bring  with  it  new  complications  and  to  provoke  new  struggles, 
we  do  not  v/ish  to  take  upon  ourselves  the  responsibility  for  its 
consequences.  That  is  why  we  realists  of  yesterday  are  nov/ 
classed  as  idealists;  and  having  formerly  been  described  as 
opportunitists,  suffer  now  from  being  termed  revolutionaries.  We 
have  not  changed,  but  things  have  changed  very  much  all 
around  us.  Public  opinion  is  with  us.  But  the  masters  of  the 
present  day  do  not  represent  public  opinion.  The  leading  ma- 
jority of  the  third  Russian  Duma  is  governmental,  while  the 
country  remains  what  it  was  before — in  opposition. 

Now  that  you  know  the  general  situation  and  my  own  place 
in  it,  let  us  enter  into  our  subject.  This,  of  course,  cannot  be 
a  detailed  account  of  the  Russian  revolution.  All  that  I  can  do 
is  to  analyze  the  moving  forces  of  that  revolution  and  to  outline 
the  principal  phases  through  which  it  has  passed.  Thus  I  hope 
to  help  you  to  a  clearer  insight  into  the  real  causes  of  the 
origin  and  the  failure  of  this  movement,  and  to  enable  you  to 
form  an  independent  judgment  as  to  its  possible  outcome. 

Of  the  four  consecutive  phases  which  one  may  distinguish  in 
the  course  of  the  events  of  the  last  three  years,  the  first  two 
mark  an  ascending  movement,  while  the  last  two  show  a  gradual 
but  uninterrupted  retrogression.     I  am  tempted  to  call  the  first 

5 


a»c<>ndin(;  phaBp  of  the  movement  the  natlonnl  phase.  For  the 
movement  Is  nntional  In  lis  origin  us  wrll  as  In  Its  manifesta- 
tions. Tlio  revolutionary  movement  originated  In  a  state  of 
general  disaffection  whleh  grew  aeute  after  the  great  national 
disaster  of  the  late  war  with  Japan,  and  sjtread  widely  through 
all  classes  of  the  population.  The  aim  of  the  movement  was 
ono  and  unified — a  current  saying  in  those  days  was,  "we  do 
not  want  reforms,  but  the  Reform,  the  Constitution."  And  its 
action  was  united.  This  accounts  for  the  strength  of  the  move- 
ment and  for  the  rapid  success  In  the  concession  conveyed  by 
the  Manifesto  of  October  30. 

The  second  ascending  phase  begins  with  the  fall  of  autocracy. 
This  was  the  neg;itlve  aim  of  the  movement,  common  to  all  of 
the  aggressive  parties.  As  soon  as  it  was  reached,  the  diverg- 
ence in  the  positive  strivings  of  yesterday's  allies  became  mani- 
fest. The  revolutionary  elements  of  the  movement,  intoxicated 
by  their  sudden  victory  of  October  30,  persuaded  themselves  that 
the  world  stood  on  the  eve  of  a  social  overthrow  and  that 
Russia  must  give  the  signal  for  it.  Thus  the  revolutionary 
raovement  first  differentiated  itself  from  the  constitutional 
movement.  The  revolutionary  phase,  however,  was  short  and 
proved  fatal  to  the  success  of  the  whole  movement.  It  began 
with  the  October  victory.  It  came  to  its  close  with  the  December 
defeat  of  the  armed  insurrection  at  Moscow.  Then  the  ebbing 
tide  was  held  back  for  a  time  by  the  initial  activity  of  the  first 
Russian  parliamentary  representation.  Thus  the  movement,  with 
the  opening  of  the  first  Duma,  entered  upon  its  third  stage. 

I  should  call  this  ihlrd_  stage  constitutional,  from  the 
methods  of  struggle  then  tried.  How  did  this  phase  end?  I 
should  be  very  much  pleased  to  tell  you  that  the  employment 
of  constitutional  methods  of  struggle  has  not  ended  yet.  But 
this  would  not  account  for  the  predominant  fact  by  which  the 
fourth  phase  of  the  movement  is  characterized,  namely,  the 
increasing  use  of  unconstitutional  methods  by  the  enemies  of 
the  movement,  who  now  take  the  offensive.  Therefore  I  call  the 
fourth  phase  counter-revolutionary.  It  began  with  the  violent 
act  of  the  dissolution  of  the  first  Duma,  and  it  became  particu- 
larly emphatic  after  the  "Fundamental  Law"  was  flagrantly 
violated  simultaneously  with  the  dissolution  of  the  second  Duma. 

Will  this  counter-revolutionary  phase  end  with  the  fifth  phase, 
that  of  a  restoration  of  autocracy?  Or  rather  will  it  bring  us 
back  to  the  third — the  constitutional  phase?     I  do  not  wish  to 


play  the  prophet,  but  one  must  at  least  prepare  for  the  worst,  and' 
there  is  no  use  in  attenuating  the  danger. 

Let  me  now  go  a  step  further  in  our  analysis.  After  having 
discriminated  political  phases,  we  can  discriminate  between  the 
leading  social  groups  involved  in  the  movement.  With  each 
political  phase  we  shall  be  able  to  point  out  a  definite  social 
group  that  is  responsible  for  it.  The  first,  or  national  phase,  is 
the  one  exception,  characterized  as  it  was  by  thie  co-operation  of 
many  advanced  groups.  In  fact,  with  the  national  phase,  social 
groups  just  began  to  organize,  and  it  was  public  opinion  in 
general,  and  its  leaders,  the  intellectuals,  that  took  the  lead.  . 
The  learned  professions  and  the  representatives  of  local  self- ,/ 
government,  these  were  the  chief  moving  forces  which  promoted 
the  movement  and  tried  to  formulate  its  demands. 

In  the  second  or  revolutionary  phase,  the  leadership  belongs 
to  itfie  socialists.  They  acted  in  the  name  of  the  proletarians,  but 
at  the  same  time  they  sought  for  allies  among  the  peasantry 
and  in  the  army.  In  the  third  phase,  the  constitutional,  the 
party  which  I  have  the  honor  to  represent  played  the  leading 
role,  the  Constitutional  Democrats.  In  the  fourth  phase,  the 
^^urt,  the  bureaucracy  and  the  nobility  begin  to  prevail.  The 
court  and  the  nobility  in  particular  have  become  the  leading 
forces  in  an  openly  avowed  movement  which  is  now  setting  in  i 
for  the  restoration  of  autocracy. 

Now,  brief  as  this  analysis  is,  I  believe  that  it  will  throw  a 
certain  light  upon  the  delayed  outcome  of  the  general  movement 
and  explain  why  it  proved — partially  and  temporarily,  let  us  hope 
— a  failure.  The  exactness  of  the  analysis  one  can  hardly  dis- 
pute; and  it  implies  a  certain  explanation.  To  make  this  clear, 
it  remains  for  me  to  fill  in  the  gaps  and  to  supply  the  most  neces- 
sary links  between  the  political  movements  and  the  social  ele- 
ments just  analyzed. 

To  repeat,  the  national  phase  was  distinguished  by  the  fact 
that  the  aims  of  all  advanced  groups  were  then  held  in  com- 
mon. Even  groups  which  in  the  revolutionary  stage  went  far 
asunder,  contributed  together  to  the  success  of  the  initial  phase. 
Thus  in  its  very  origin  the  movement  was  two-fold.  It  opened 
with  the  famous  Petition  of  Right,  formulated  on  November  22, 
1904,  by  members  of  the  gentry,  and  two  months  later  it  was 
reinforced  by  the  first  appearance  of  the  working  masses,  whom 
Father  Gapon  led  to  the  Winter  Palace  on  the  Red  Sunday, 
January  22,  1905.     The  final  triumph,  the  Manifesto  of  October 


80.  VJOo.  waa  also  attnliu'd  through  the  Indiscriminate  co-oper- 
ation of  nil  the  ndvancod  groups.  After  this  first  victory,  won 
through  a  gtnerul  strike  which  was  quite  unprecedented  in  its 
extension,  the  socialists  rejieatedly  issued  ordrrs  to  the  worldng- 
men  to  strike  again,  and  each  time  the  attempt  was  a  failure. 
The  one  successful  strike  which  wrung  from  the  government  the 
decisive  concession  was  prepared  and  led  in  great  measure 
by  the  Intellectuals,  and  in  a  quite  spontaneous  way  was  sup- 
ported by  various  social  groups.  Tor  example,  even  the  capital- 
ists, without  exception,  supported  their  laborers  while  on  strike 
by  paying  their  wages  for  the  entire  time.  Private  shops  and 
ofBces  voluntarily  closed  In  compliance  with  the  general  state  of 
public  opinion.  Professors  forcefully  told  the  government  that 
it  must  not  oppose  the  meetings  held  within  the  walls  of  the 
higher  institutions  of  learning.  The  juries  declared  themselves 
unable  to  pronounce  sentences  during  the  days  of  the  strike, 
while  judges  and  tribunals  went  on  strike  with  the  rest.  Even 
the  oflBcials  in  several  State  offices  stopped  their  work.  In  short. 
It  was  an  outbreak  of  universal  enthusiasm,  which  proved  to  the 
government  that  further  resistance  was  impossible  and  brought  it 
to  surrender. 

Then  it  was  that  the  revolutionary  elements  grew  self-con- 
fident, and  went  their  own  way,  preparing  for  a  more  decisive 
blow.  Much  later,  the  socialist  leaders  themselves  were  brought 
to  a  realization  that  their  own  estimate  of  their  power  was 
greatly  exaggerated,  as  likewise  the  amount  of  real  influence 
which  they  had  over  the  proletarians.  But  by  this  time  their 
optimism  had  grown  boundless.  Even  the  impossible  had  be- 
gun to  seem  possible — I  mean,  the  impossible  according  to  their 
own  doctrine.  The  element  of  truth  in  their  argument  was  that 
no  decisive  results  could  be  won  from  the  government  in  the 
way  of  voluntary  concessions.  And  indeed,  even  such  concessions 
as  had  been  granted  on  October  30  were  by  no  means  voluntary. 
If  proofs  are  wanted  for  this  assertion,  they  will  be  found  in 
the  present  activities  of  the  government — in  Its  attempt  to  with- 
draw as  far  as  possible  even  the  concessions  given.  But  from 
an  exact  observation  the  socialists  drew  quite  a  wrong  conclu- 
sion, namely,  that  no  concessions  of  any  kind  were  wanted  be- 
cause the  proletarians  by  themselves  were  strong  enough  to 
bring  about  an  armed  Insurrection,  to  form  a  revolutionary 
government,  and  thus  to  dictate  the  will  of  the  people.  The 
general  strike,  according  to  them,  was  nothing  more  than  a  mod- 

8 


est  introduction  to  the  real  fight.  They  ordered  new  strikes  after 
strikes;  they  organized  a  nucleus  for  a  revolutionary  govern- 
ment— their  St.  Petersburg  Council  of  Workingmen  Delegates, 
elected  by  the  workingmen  in  St.  Petersburg  factories.  They 
even  anticipated  an  actual  advent  of  socialism  as  a  result  of  their 
coming  victory,  though  such  a  result  was  in  formal  contradiction 
with  their  own  accepted  theory.  The  current  doctrine  then  was  ^ 
that  the  coming  revolution  was  to  be  bourgeois,  not  socialistic. 
But  in  their  growing  impatience,  the  St.  Petersburg  socialists 
were  unwilling  even  to  wait  for  this  bourgeois  victory  for  the 
realization  of  their  minimum  program.  The  Council  of  Dele- 
gates issued  an  order  on  November  11,  according  to  which  the 
eight-hour  day  was  to  be  introduced  in  all  factories  by  the 
workingmen  themselves  in  a  revolutionary  way. 

In  vain  some  few  delegates  tried  to  persuade  their  comrades 
that  it  was  sheer  madness  to  undertake  the  struggle  with  the  ^ 
capitalists  before  their  struggle  with  autocracy  itself  had  come 
to  a  satisfactory  ending.  The  results  were,  of  course,  disastrous. 
The  private  and  government  factories,  challenged  by  their  work- 
ingmen, replied  with  a  series  of  lockouts.  About  100,000  men 
lost  their  work,  and  the  threat  of  a  new  strike  proved  Inef- 
fective. After  two  weeks  of  hopeless  resistance,  the  Council 
had  to  surrender  and  withdraw  its  order.  The  government  felt 
encouraged,  and  took  the  offensive.  On  December  9,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Council  was  arrested.  On  December  16,  one  day  after 
the  revolutionary  manifesto  was  launched  by  the  Council,  all  its 
members  were  imprisoned.  Then,  as  a  last  attempt,  a  new  strike 
was  proclaimed,  to  serve  as  an  introduction  to  the  armed 
insurrection  which  was  to  be  tried  at  Moscow.  The  moment 
could  not  have  been  more  badly  chosen  for  the  decisive  blow. 
After  some  ten  days  of  haphazard  fighting,  the  Moscow  insurrec- 
tion was  crushed  by  the  guard  regiments,  and  this  put  a  speedy 
end  to  all  theories  of  a  permanent  revolution  in  Russia.  More- 
over, the  Moscow  defeat  served  as  a  signal  for  a  relentless  prose- 
cution of  the  adherents  of  the  revolutionary  movement  through- 
out Russia.  Special  military  trains  were  kept  ready  and  mili- 
tary expeditions  were  sent  far  and  wide,  especially  to  the 
outskirts  of  the  empire,  the  Caucasus,  the  Baltic  provinces,  and  / 
to  Siberia,  which  proved  particularly  rebellious.  The  army 
ransacked  the  population,  with  no  discrimination  between  the 
guilty  and  the  innocent.  Whole  villages  were  burned,  people  were 
hanged  and  killed  on  mere  suspicion,  contributions  were  levied 

9 


on  tho  'Intt'rnal  «'iuMny."  aiul  ho  forth.  Hy  intnina  of  all  theso 
atrocltlis.  what  still  rt-nmliu'il  of  the  revolutionary  conflagration 
was  mercilossly  stlflid.  "IVace"  was  restored  on  the  great 
roads  and  In  the  large  cities. 

Still  the  end  of  the  revolutionary  movement  was  not  yet.  There 
remained  the  villages,  and  the  last  hopes  of  the  revolutionaries 
were  transferred  to  these.  Of  course  the  outbreaks  In  the  vil- 
lages were  less  dramatic  and  less  calculated  to  attract  public  at- 
tention than  revolutionary  i)roceedings  by  the  workingmen,  con- 
centrated by  tens  and  hundreds  of  thousands  in  the  large  cities. 
But  the  agrarian  troubles  were  far  more  perilous,  and  they  af- 
fected the  well-being  of  the  privileged  and  inHuontial  class  of 
landlords  more  strongly  than  the  strikes  of  workingmen  affected 
the  Russian  capitalists.  Russia  is  not  yet  an  industrial  country,  and 
In  spite  of  all  the  recent  development  of  Russian  industry,  the 
number  of  workingmen  in  the  factories  does  not  exceed  two  per 
cent  of  the  population,  while  the  peasants  constitute  eighty-five 
per  cent. 

The  peasants  of  course  were  unable  to  march  under  the 
banner  of  socialism  and  obey  its  orders.  But  we  saw  that  even 
among  the  proletarians  the  Influence  of  socialistic  societies  was 
not  so  strong  as  their  leaders  presumed  it  to  be.  If  socialism 
had  some  elements  of  organization  which  lead  to  success,  It 
also  had  its  theories  which  brought  the  movement  to  ruin.  Social- 
ism tried  to  impart  to  the  Russian  peasants  its  organization  and 
theories.  A  counterpart  to  the  Council  of  Workingmen  Dele- 
gates was  started  under  the  name  of  The  Peasants'  Union,  in 
order  to  organize  the  agrarian  outbreak.  Socialism  tried  also 
to  adapt  its  doctrine  to  the  kind  of  agrarian  terrorism  to  which 
Russian  peasants  were  particularly  inclined.  But  here  the  cen- 
tralizing influence  of  socialism  was  still  weaker;  the  movement 
itself  was  even  more  spontaneous  and  depended  more  upon  Its 
own  intrinsic  causes. 

These  causes  were  never  lacking  in  a  Russian  village,  and 
particularly  so  after  the  great  emancipation  reform  of  1861. 
"More  land,"  this  was  for  half  a  century  the  constant  cry  of 
the  Russian  peasant.  He  got  less  than  his  expectation  In  the 
"great  reform,"  receiving  only  too  little  from  the  land  he  had 
tilled  for  his  landlord.  And  for  this  little  he  was  compelled  to 
pay  too  much  out  of  his  scanty  earnings.  From  that  time,  as  the 
population  went  on  Increasing,  the  Individual  land-holdings  be- 
came   still    smaller,    while    Indirect    taxation    grew    out    of   all 


proportion  to  the  increase  in  the  population.  The  cry  for  more 
land  became  the  cry  of  distress,  the  cry  of  starvation.  During 
the  summer  months  of  1903,  an  agrarian  outbreak  took  place 
quite  spontaneously.  Famine-stricken,  the  peasants  came  In 
crowds  to  the  neighboring  landlords.  Finding  that  these  pos- 
sessed much  more  grain  than  they  needed,  while  they  themselves 
had  nothing  to  eat,  the  peasants  quietly  carried  off  on  their 
carts  what  they  considered  superfluous.  In  the  year  1905,  the 
year  of  revolution,  amidst  the  general  excitement  of  that  time, 
agrarian  troubles  broke  out  again  on  a  much  larger  scale  and 
took  a  more  violent  form.  In  the  autumn  of  1905,  the  trouble 
spread  over  more  than  a  third  of  European  Russia,  that  is, 
in  one  hundred  and  sixty-one  districts  out  of  four  hundred 
and  thirty-six — thirty-seven  per  cent  of  the  area  of  the  country. 
About  two  thousand  estates  and  country  houses  of  landlords 
were  burned  or  ravaged.  The  entire  loss  suffered  by  the  land- 
lords at  this  time  was  estimated  at  about  fifteen  million  dollars. 
"Some  one  must  perish,  either  we  or  our  landlords,"  the  peas- 
ants were  heard  saying.  And  the  landlords'  utterance  was  no 
less  telling:  "If  we  do  not  cut  down  our  estates  and  give  the 
peasants  new  allotments,  they  will  cut  us  down!" 

Thus  the  agrarian  question  assumed  first  rank  among  the 
burning  questions  of  the  day.  The  different  proposals  for  the 
solution  of  this  question  served  thenceforth  to  differentiate 
the  political  groups.  After  some  brief  period  of  hesitation, 
corresponding  to  the  third  political  phase,  the  government 
sided  with  the  land-owners,  while  the  opposition  took  decidedly 
the  side  of  the  peasants.  Under  such  circumstances,  the  Con- 
stitutional Democratic  party  was  founded,  which  had  to  play  the 
Teading  role  in  the  constitutional  phase  of  the  movement.  This 
party  was  composed  of  the  more  advanced  elements  among  the 
RuUnluu  gculiy  ana  of^the  more  moderate  elements  ~smong_  the 
members  of  thelearned  professi^nsr~TEe~chreFaim^of  the  party  '/ 
was~~To  reconcile  the  idealistic  aspirations  of  the  movement 
with  the  practicability  of  the  issued,  and  thus  to  inaugurate  in 
Russia  a  regime  of  political  freedom.  The  elements  of  the  new 
party  already  existed  in  the  previous  political  organizations; 
and  this  is  why  only  a  few  weeks  after  its  constituent  congress, 
held  in  the  very  turmoil  of  the  October  strike,  the  party  counted 
already  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  members.  A  few  com- 
parisons will  make  clear  the  political  position  of  the  Constitu- 


vX 


itonnl    DtinorriuU'    i>:irty    In    the    midst    of    tlio    cxtn-ines    of    tli' 
movomont: 

1.  The  rovolutlonnry  movrniont  nlmod  nt  a  conimonwnnli 
wlitlo  the  rracdonarlos  wnnttd  to  ro-ostnblish  antoi  racy.  '1 - 
Constitutional  Democratic  party  docidod  to  HkIU  for  a  parli 
u'.oniary   rule  under  a  constitutional  monarch. 

:'.     The  revolutionists  wished  to  have  a  charter  worked  out  i 
a  constitutional  convention  and  sanctioned  by  a  victorious  n 
lution.     The   reactionaries  did  not  want  any  charter  at  all, 
at  the  worst,  a  consultative  rei)resentatlon  granted  by  the  Tt^:i. 
Our   i>arty    proposed   a   charter   worked   out  by   the   first   repii 
sentatlve  assembly,  subject  to  the  ajiproval  of  the  Tsar. 

3.     As    to   agrarian    reform,    the    revolutionists    defended    f 
principle,  "The  whole  land  lo  the  whole  people,"  the  land  to 
apjiropriated    by    the    people    themselves,    acting    through    tli 
delegates  in  local  committees,  which  w'ere  to  be  elected  on  ( 
basis    of    universal    suffrage.     The    government    would    pen 
nothing   except    a    regular    sale    of    land    through    the    medi 
of  the   existing   Peasant  Bank,   and   at   the   open   market   prii 
Our  party  proposed  a  systematic  extension  of  the  eraancipati'  :; 
reform   of    ISGl,    by    dealing    out    additional    allotments    to    th- 
communes   from   the   free    (crown)    lands,   and   from   the   lars'  r 
private  estates,   to   be   expropriated  by   means   of  a   compulsory 
sale  at  a  fair  price.     The  price  was  to  be  settled  by  special  coin- 
niittees    formed    of    private   land-owners   and    rGprcsentative? 
the  peasant  communes  in  equal  numbers. 

This  was  a  very   radical   program,  but  to  our  view  it  cor 
spouded  thoroughly  with  the  necessities  of  the  moment  and  t' 
peculiarities  of  Russian   conditions.     Of  course  we   did  not   1 
lieve  that  the  government  would  accept  this  program  willing' 
and  voluntarily.     But  one  must  always  remember  that  this  v 
the    moment   when    the   government,   in    spite    of   its   Decemb  r 
victory,  was  quite  cov.ed  by  apprehension  at  the  coming  agrarifm 
troubles.     And  they  knew  but  too  well  that  even  for  the  Ca 
program,  the  peasants  were  yet  to  be  won. 

However,  at  the  same  time  the  government  still  cherished  the ' 
hope  of  being  able  to  palliate  discontent  and  disorder  by  soni^ 
demagogic  means.  Owing  to  the  state  of  public  opinion  in  i 
country  Itself  and  abroad,  considering  the  necessity  of  a  fort  in 
loan,  being  conscious  of  its  own  v/eakness  after  the  defeat  in 
the  war  with  Japan,  the  government  did  not  think  of  forsaking 
entirely    the   principles   of   national    representation.     But   it  ex- 


pected  to  organize  in  the  first  Duma  a  subservient  ministerial 
party,  formed  chiefly  of  peasants,  to  whom  the  electoral  law 
secured  a  very  large  representation.  And  thus  the  government 
decided  to  prepai'e  for  the  electoral  campaign.  It  even  enlarged 
the  franchise  by  the  additional  law  of  December  24,  1905,  as  a 
concession  to  general  demands  for  universal  suffrage.  The  revolu- 
tionary elements,  on  their  side,  learned  nothing.  They  continued 
attacking  the  bourgeoisie  furiously  as  being  alone  responsible  for 
their  December  defeat.  They  tried  to  discredit  and  denounce  in 
advance  the  coming  Duma  as  an  assembly  of  landlords  and 
officials,  and  in  their  blindness  they  proposed  to  the  masses  to 
boycott  the  impending  elections.  The  Constitutional  Democratic 
party  was  then  the  only  party  in  opposition  which  did  its  best 
to  win  public  opinion  to  the  idea  of  a  struggle  by  parliamentary 
means.  Great  was  the  disappointment  of  the  government  and 
the  astonishment  of  the  revolutionists  when  the  electoral  returns 
gave  a  prevailing  part  to  the  Constitutional  Democrats  in  the 
first  Russian  Duma. 

The  government  then  hastily  took  measures  of  precaution 
against  the  "revolutionary"  assembly.  A  foreign  loan  of  two  and 
a  quarter  milliards  of  francs  set  the  government  free  from 
immediate  dependence  on  the  national  representatives.  A  series 
of  "temporary"  laws  were  hurriedly  published  in  order  to  bring 
into  legal  limits  the  "civil  liberties"  promised  by  the  Manifesto. 
And  last  but  not  least,  this  period  of  what  was  called  in  Russia, 
"quick-fire  gun"  legislation,  was  crowned  with  a  most  important 
declaration.  A  few  days  before  the  opening  of  the  session,  a  sort 
of  charter  or  "fundamental  law"  was  published  which  put  as 
narrow  limits  as  possible  to  the  legislative  powers  of  the  Duma. 
These  laws  were  not  to  be  changed  except  by  the  initiative  of  the 
Tsar.  And  yet  even  though  thus  muzzled,  the  national  represen- 
tatives held  the  government  in  a  state  of  constant  fear  and  be- 
v/ilderment,  or  else  of  malicious  expectation.  The  ministry  re- 
mained inactive  and  the  Chamber  was  left  to  itself,  particularly 
after  it  answered  the  ministerial  declaration  by  a  vote  of  dissent. 
The  government  was  compelled  to  decide  between  a  dissolution 
and  a  ministerial  change.  A  dissolution  was  then  still  considered 
as  fraught  with  every  sort  of  danger.  That  is  why,  in  its  extreme 
embarrassment,  the  government  thought  for  an  instant  of  regular 
co-operation  with  the  majority  in  the  Duma.  One  of  the  high 
dignitaries  who  was  intrusted  with  the  preliminary  negotiations, 

13 


y 


told  me  openly  what  their  motives  were  in  proposlnK  to  call 
a  Cadet  ministry  to  power.  "When  a  house  is  on  fire,"  this  gen- 
tleman said,  "one  is  obliged  to  choose  between  leaping  from  the 
fifth  story  at  the  risk  of  a  broken  leg,  and  the  peril  of  being 
burned  alive." 

I  am  intlined  lo  think  that  this  argument  did  not  appear  to 
the  Tsar  conclusive.  The  following  considerations  may  likewise 
have  determined  the  government  to  try  a  dissolution  instead  of 
"a  leap  from  the  fifth  story":  in  the  first  place,  the  Cadets  (or 
Constitutional  Democrats),  whom  the  government  regarded  for 
a  while  as  leaders  of  the  whole  movement,  proved  unable  to  con- 
trol the  revolution,  and  even  in  the  Duma  did  not  always  com- 
mand a  majority.  There  was  another  important  group  in  the 
Duma,  the  so-called  Group  of^.Toil,  which  became  very  popular 
among  the  peasants,  owing  to  its  revolutionary  program  of  land- 
nationalization.  The  activity  of  this  Group  in  the  Duma  and 
outside  it,  re-kindled  revolutionary  hopes  for  the  attainment  of 
power.  The  revolutionists  now  completely  changed  their  minds 
as  to  the  part  to  be  played  by  the  Duma  in  the  Russian  revolu- 
tion. After  having  discredited  the  Duma  as  bourgeois  and 
quite  powerless,  they  now  wanted  it  to  take  possession  of  the 
executive  power.  The  Cadets  found  themselves  in  an  exceedingly 
Qifficult  position.  On  the  one  hand,  they  had  to  fight  for  a 
responsible  ministry  in  order  to  establish  a  normal  Influence  on 
the  part  of  the  Duma  over  the  executive  power.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  had  to  hold  in  check  every  attempt  to  appropriate  the 
executive  functions  by  the  Duma  itself.  Of  course  this  was 
enough  to  paralyze  any  great  measure  of  exertion.  But  the  chief 
reasons  for  the  government  to  abstain  from  any  co-operation 
with  the  Cadets  was  the  agrarian  program,  which  frightened 
the  nobility.  Here  again  the  Cadets  had  to  debate  between  the 
government,  which  did  not  wish  to  decide  for  the  principle  of 
compulsory  sale,  and  the  extremists,  who  proposed  the  pure 
spoliation  of  landlords,  to  the  groat  satisfaction  of  the  inexperi- 
enced masses.  Finally  the  government  committed  itself  to  the 
unconstitutional  step  of  publishing  an  announcement  to  the 
people  by  which  the  legislative  plans  of  the  Duma  were  repudi- 
ated in  advance.  The  Duma  tried  to  reply,  insisting  on  the 
fundamental  principle  of  compulsory  sale  and  inviting  the  popu- 
lation— this  latter  point  being  opposed  by  the  Group  of  Toll — to 
remain  quiet  and  await  patiently  the  results  of  the  Duma's  legis- 
lation.    Upon  this  attempt  to  address  the  population,  the  Duma 

14 


was  dissolved  and  the  address  was  never  published.     The  leading 
majority   replied   by  the   famous  Viborg  Manifesto,   proclaiming    >^ 
the  principle  of  passive  resistance. 

The  fears  of  the  government  ran  high  at  the  moment  of  this 
declaration.  For  some  few  days  one  dreaded  military  out- 
breaks and  revolutionary  dictators  at  Tsarkoe  Selo.  One  spoke 
even  of  a  foreign  fleet  to  appear  at  the  mouth  of  the  Neva.  A 
circular  letter  of  the  Premier  anticipated  serious  disorders  in  the 
interior.  Once  more  all  this  only  showed  that  the  government 
itself  greatly  exaggerated  the  forces  of  the  organized  revolution- 
ary movement.  The  few  outbreaks  that  really  followed  the  dis- 
solution were  easily  stifled.  The  government  then  gradually 
turned  to  another  extreme,  or  rather  to  its  habitual  mistake.  It 
began  again  to  underrate  the  amount  of  political  disaffection 
which  had  become  endemic  in  the  Russian  masses.  The  reac- 
tionary forces  lifted  up  their  heads  and  the  counter-revolutionary 
phase  set  in. 

In  fact  the  government  never  gave  up  its  resistance  to  the 
movement,  and  it  never  tried  to  change  its  usual  methods  of 
administration.  The  liberties  granted  by  the  Manifesto  were  \/ 
never  regularly  used.  Many  of  the  provinces  of  Russia  (in  . 
1906,  three-quarters  of  them)  were  administered  by  excep- 
tional law,  and  this  gave  a  legal  pretext  for  not  enacting  the 
constitutional  liberties.  The  general  evil  from  which  Russia 
always  suffered — arbitrariness  in  administration  and  non-ob- 
servance of  law — greatly  increased  in  the  state  of  civil  war 
which  practically  prevailed  in  Russia  after  the  Manifesto  of 
October  30.  By  long  practice  of  arbitrariness,  certain  habits 
were  formed  which  made  adaptation  possible.  But  after  the 
Manifesto,  private  considerations  of  individual  officials  took  the 
place  of  an  established  routine.  The  country  was  divided  into 
two  hostile  camps,  between  which  no  compromise  was  possible. 
High-handed  deeds  of  petty  officials  were  formally  approved  and 
encouraged  by  their  superiors.  The  feeling  of  general  unsafety 
increased  immensely  under  these  conditions,  and  this  existing 
misrule  became  largely  responsible  for  that  state  of  anarchy  and 
■terror  from  which  Russia  now  suffers.  To  quote  some  striking 
instances:  in  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, one  hundred  and  thirty-four  death  sentences  were  pro- 
nounced In  Russia,  on  the  average  five  sentences  a  year.  In  the 
two  years  following  the  Manifesto,  the  number  of  criminals  sen- 
tenced to  death  (almost  without  exception  for  political  offenses) . 

15 


rose  lo  Uie  enormous  loiul  ot  two  tliousund.  seven  hundred  and 
eevculeen,  of  whom  one  thousand,  seven  hundred  and  eighty 
were  executed.  The  whole  number  of  persons  condemned  for 
political  offenses  during  these  two  years  was  eighteen  thousand, 
two  hundred  and  seventy-four,  while  formerly  It  had  not  exceeded 
one  thousand  a  year,  and  the  number  for  190-1 — about  four  thou 
sand — was  considered  as  quite  exceptional. 

Out  of  the  eighteen  thousand,  two  hundred  and  seventy-four 
condemned,  one  thousand  one  hundred  and  fourteen  criminals 
belonged  to  a  class  which  Is  rarely  considered  as  criminal;  they 
were  directors  of  newspapers  and  periodicals,  who  tried  to  make 
use  of  the  freedom  of  the  press  proclaimed  by  the  Manifesto. 
Nine  hundred  and  thirty-eight  newspapers  and  periodicals  were 
stopped  forever  In  the  same  period  of  time.  Public  meetings — 
another  liberty  granted  by  the  Manifesto — are  practically  per- 
mitted by  the  police  only  during  the  electoral  campaigns  and 
almost  exclusively  In  large  cities.  The  right  of  forming  unions 
and  societies,  which  makes  the  third  liberty  of  the  Manifesto, 
can  be  of  service  only  for  such  organizations  as  enjoy  the  pro- 
tection of  the  government.  Registration  Is  regularly  refused  to 
organizations  which  are  suspected  of  opposition,  on  most  futile 
pretexts.  Not  satisfied  with  the  prosecution  of  such  associations, 
the  government  recently  began  a  systematic  prosecution  of  the 
duly  registered  and  legally  existing  professional  unions.  In 
short,  any  one  who  would  tell  you  that  Russia  really  enjoys  the 
civil  liberties  granted  by  the  Manifesto,  would  state  a  lie.  The 
truth  is  that  only  those  liberties  were  and  are  permitted  which 
the  government  was  and  Is  powerless  to  forbid;  and  such  liberties 
are  often  used  without  any  legal  restraint,  while  a  regular  and 
law-abiding  practice  of  civil  liberties  is  nearly  always  refused 
legal  permission. 

Thus,  under  the  new  r<;gime  of  national  representation,  the 
executive  power  tried  to  remain  what  it  had  always  been  before, 
and  never  thought  of  changing  its  former  methods  of  adminis- 
tration. And  as  long  as  the  present  misrule  lasts,  it  is  almost 
Impossible  for  the  legislative  power  to  do  its  proper  work. 

The  first  Duma  was  forced  to  spend  much  of  its  time  in  useless 
exertion  to  stop  this  evil  in  the  only  legal  way  by  interpellations 
on  the  subject  of  all  the  numberless  mischiefs  done  by  the  Home 
Office.  About  three  hundred  and  eighty  Interpellations  were  pre- 
sented by  the  members  during  the  hundred  days  of  the  existence 
of  the  first  Duma.     The  reply  of  the  ministers  was  always  the 

i6 


same:  everything  is  being  done  according  to  the  existing  law. 
Very  soon  it  became  clear  that  unless  the  ministers  were  made 
really  responsible  to  the  national  representative  assembly,  and 
unless  the  system  of  administration  by  exceptional  laws  was 
abolished,  no  redress  of  administrative  abuses  was  possible  for 
the  Duma.  That  is  why  the  second  Duma  made  a  very  moderate 
use  of  its  right  of  interpellation,  not  because  it  turned  a  deaf  ear 
to  the  sufferings  of  the  people,  but  because  it  knew  the  inefficiency 
of  its  defense. 

When  we  say  then,  that  the  government  took  to  the  offensive 
and  that  a  counter-revolutionary  phase  set  in,  we  certainly 
mean  something  new  and  still  stronger  than  mere  enforcing  of 
the  old  methods  of  administration,  which  were  never  stopped.  The 
new  feature  is  that  new  means  and  facilities,  given  by  the  regime 
of  political  freedom,  are  being  used  as  a  weapon  against  this 
very  regime.  The  government,  it  is  true,  proclaimed  itself  above 
all  parties,  thus  trying  to  set  its  autocratic  system  in  opposition 
to  party  politics,  essential  to  parliamentary  rule.  But  under  the 
disguise  of  mors  elevated  political  maxims,  it  only  tried  to  organ- 
ize its  own  political  party — that  of  autocracy.  For  this  purpose 
the  government  invited  all  elements  to  unite  which  were  likely 
to  defend  the  "old,  holy  Russia,"  orthodox  and  autocratic. 

A  more  fatal  blow  to  the  very  idea  of  that  "old,  holy  Russia" 
could  hardly  have  been  struck,  than  by  trying  this  truly  crucial 
experiment.  Only  two  years  ago,  were  not  the  high  ideals  of 
a  "little  Father"  of  Russia,  a  holy  Synod,  a  credulous,  bigoted, 
ignorant  Russian  peasant,  supporting  the  edifice  of  the  Omnipo- 
tent Bureaucracy — was  not  all  this  rubbish  given  out  for  the 
benefit  of  foreign  readers,  as  the  actual  "truth  about  Russia"? 
And  in  Russia  herself,  who  could  pretend  to  know  the  real  num- 
ber of  "Old  Believers,"  ready  to  support  the  ancient  political 
system?  Now,  the  partisans  of  autocracy  are  counted  by  the 
interested  party  itself,  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  civilized 
world,  and  everybody  can  judge  for  himself  who  they  are  and 
how  many. 

The  illusion  of  an  omnipotent  bureaucracy  dwindles  at  once 
to  something  insignificant.  Red  tape,  by  its  very  nature,  can 
rarely  come  to  real  power.  It  may  form  powerful  machinery, 
but  if  not  greased  and  directed  from  outside,  the  machinery 
remains  inactive.  In  its  professional  quality,  bureaucracy  neces- 
sarily possesses  a  certain  standard  of  intelligence,  and,  in  spite 
of  all  its  routine,  it  is  not  necessarily  averse  to  all  reform.    When 

17 


burpnucrncy  is  left  to  Itself,  in  the  periods  of  stagnation  It  uses 
Its  intelllKrnce  for  self-criticism  and  becomes  slicjttical  and 
cyniral.  Many  writers  on  Russia  were  astonished  to  find  those 
peculiar  features  under  the  oflleial  surface  of  the  Russian  civil 
service.  Russian  bureaucracy — at  least  In  its  higher  stages  and 
to  a  certain  extent — has  grown  liberal  for  the  obvious  reason 
that  nobody  knew  better  than  it  did,  all  the  drawbacks  of  official 
prosperity. 

I  trust  that  you  will  not  take  these  remarks  for  a  defense  of 
bureaucracy  as  a  system  of  government.  Bureaucracy  is  but  an 
engine  which  no  modern  state  can  do  without.  But  the  force 
and  the  spirit  must  be  brought  to  this  engine  from  outside.  All 
I  want  to  impress  on  you  is  that  the  responsibility  for  the  spirit 
now  pervading  Russian  bureaucracy  must  be  laid  at  another  door. 
/The  real  moving  forces  of  the  present  counter-revolutionary 
^  phase  are  the  court  and  the  nobility.  The  attempts  they  are 
now  making  for  a  new  organization  of  self-defense  have  but  little 
In  common  with  the  regular  work  done  by  the  bureaucratic 
machine.  As  I  have  just  said,  they  turn  for  a  new  experiment 
to  the  building  of  political  parties  and  to  interfering  with  politi- 
cal elections.  These  are  new  means  through  whicli  they  try  to 
perpetuate,  under  the  new  order  of  things,  their  former  predoml- 

/ance. 
We  can  trace  back  the  origin  of  reactionary  organizations  to 
me  very  beginnings  of  political  liberty  in  Russia.  Some  of  you 
may  still  remember  a  very  expressive  comparison  used  by  Mr. 
Stead,  between  what  he  called  a  "beautiful  picture"  drawn  by  his 
Imperial  Majesty  in  his  October  Manifesto,  and  the  same  Mani- 
festo blackened  on  the  very  next  day  by  the  brutal  "brush"  of 
General  Trepofl.  General  Trepofl,  in  his  quality  of  chief  of  the 
Russian  police,  suffered  the  so-called  "patriotic"  disorders  and 
pogroms  to  take  place  in  numerous  towns  in  Russia,  where  they 
were  organized,  with  the  evident  connivance  of  the  local  authori- 
ties, as  counter-demonstrations  against  the  Tsar's  Manifesto. 
Mr.  Stead's  mistake  was  only  in  thinking  of  General  Trepoff's 
"brush"  as  something  incidental  to  the  "beautiful  picture."  A 
movement  which,  within  a  week's  time,  carried  with  it  three 
thousand  victims  killed  outright,  and  ten  thousand  wounded  and 
maimed,  evidently  testifies  to  a  certain  organization  behind  the 
scenes.  Certain  secret  societies,  organized  by  reactionary  leaders 
and  well-known  to  the  police,  have  existed  since  the  spring  of 
1905.     Their  avowed  aim  has  been  to  defend  autocracy  in  the 


name  of  "patriotism."  The  elements  of  which  local  groups  were 
formed  belonged  to  the  most  abject  and  ignorant  part  of  the 
mob  in  towns  and  cities,  but  the  leading  inspiration  came  from 
persons  connected  with  the  Court,  and  several  members  of  the 
movement  were  known  to  belong  to  the  Court.  Favored  by  such 
patronage,  some  few  active  propagandists  succeeded  in  uniting 
local  reactionary  groups  into  one  "Union."  The  central  organi- 
zation took  the  presumptuous  name  of  the  "Russian  People," 
or,  to  distinguish  themselves  from  the  "depraved"  part  of  Russia, 
the  "True-Russians."  The  fundamental  conception  was  that  the 
Russian  revolution  was  forged  by  Jews  and  foreigners,  while 
no  genuine  Russian  would  sympathize  with  it.  All  "True- 
Russians"  were  invited  to  join  the  only  party  of  the  Russian 
people — which  was  in  itself  a  negation  of  party  politics  and 
an  adequate  embodiment  of  the  "True-Russian"  idea  of  a  state 
in  which  all  powers  belong  to  the  sovereign,  while  nothing  but 
"opinion"  can  belong  to  the  people.  This  was,  of  course,  only 
the  theoretical  side,  so  to  say,  the  sign-board,  of  the  move- 
ment. The  practical  side  of  it  can  be  fully  illustrated  by  the 
reign  of  terror  inaugurated  by  the  "True-Russian"  mob  in 
Odessa  and  in  some  other  Russian  cities,  with  the  obliging 
support  of  local  administration. 

Thus  supported  and  protected,  the  "Union  of  the  Russian 
People"  soon  grew  over  the  head  of  the  ministry  itself.  They 
openly  organized  their  "fighting  rings,"  to  which  fire-arms  were 
officially  distributed.  They  called  upon  local  authorities  for  help 
and  complained  loudly  against  such  as  did  not  comply  with 
their  demands.  On  the  question  of  political  reliability  and  patriot- 
ism, they  challenged  ministers  and  Holy  Synod;  and  they  even 
reproached  the  German  Kaiser  on  the  ground  that  he  had  showed 
a  friendly  disposition  toward  Count  Witte,  "whom  the  whole  of 
Russia  unanimously  considers  responsible  for  all  the  calamities 
which  befell  our  country,  and  who  is  the  chief  originator  of  ter- 
rorism and  a  special  protector  of  the  Jews."  The  most  astonish- 
ing circumstance  was  that  the  Kaiser  found  it  necessary  immedi- 
ately to  exculpate  himself,  declaring  that  he  "never  displayed 
such  a  disposition  toward  Mr.  Witte  as  was  imputed  to  him." 

Of  course  very  exceptional  reasons  were  needed  to  call  forth 
such  an  exceptional  declaration  on  the  part  of  the  Kaiser.  The 
reason  was  perhaps  that  the  "True-Russians"  pretended  to  enjoy 
the  special  protection  of  the  Tsar.  It  reads  at  the  head  of  their 
statutes  that  his  Majesty  on  two  occasions,  December  23,  1905, 

19 


and  February  16,  1906.  personally  assured  the  "Russian  People" 
that  his  "autocracy  remains  the  same  as  it  had  been  from  ancient 
Umos."  Twice  also  an  allusion  was  made  by  tho  Tsar  to  the 
representatives  of  the  "Union,"  that  "the  Sun  of  Truth  would 
6onie  day  shine  brightly  over  Russia":  "Unite  yourselves,  ye 
Russian  People,  I  count  upon  you."  "With  your  help  I  hope  to 
succeed  in  vanquishing  the  enemies  of  Russia." 

The  last  and  the  most  explicit  of  these  statements  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  President  of  the  "Union"  a  few  days  after  the  dis- 
solution of  the  second  Duma,  as  an  answer  to  their  thanks  for 
the  dissolution:  "Let  the  Union  of  the  Russian  People  serve  as  a 
reliable  support.  I  am  sure  that  all  true  Russians  who  love  their 
country  will  unite  still  closer  and.  while  steadily  increasing  in 
number,  will  help  me  to  attain  the  peaceful  renovation  of  our 
holy  and  great  Russia."  They  say  the  President  of  the  Cabinet 
first  saw  this  telegram  when  it  was  printed  in  the  official  organ 
of  the  "True-Russians."  He  grew  furious  and  made  representa- 
tions to  the  Tsar,  but  it  was  too  late;  the  thing  was  done. 
The  fault  lay,  as  usual,  at  the  door  of  a  member  of  the  imperial 
household.  What  now  was  the  result  of  all  this  high  patronage 
and  exceptional  favor?  The  elections  repeatedly  proved  to  every- 
body who  cared  to  know  it,  that  if  Russia  was  great,  it  was  not 
owing  to  the  "True-Russians."  They  commanded  a  ludicrously 
small  vote.  No  one  of  them  was  elected  to  the  first  Duma.  In 
the  traditional  capital  of  "Holy  Russia,"  Moscow,  there  was  only 
one  vote  cast  for  the  leader  of  the  party,  Mr.  Gringmoot,  and  evil 
tongues  asserted,  it  was  his  own!  In  the  second  electoral  cam- 
paign, many  democratic  elements  were  excluded  from  the  vote 
and  every  kind  of  pressure  was  used,  in  order  to  get  a  govern- 
mental majority.  Yet  as  a  result,  the  Duma  election  was  social- 
istic and  Constitutional  Democratic.  Only  sixty-three  members 
out  of  the  whole  number  of  four  hundred  and  sixty-one,  called 
themselves  "monarchists,"  and  of  these  only  seven  were  unswerv- 
ingly autocratic.  Only  three  voters  in  every  hundred  were  found 
to  be  "True-Russians"  In  the  Russian  cities.  Then,  at  the  third 
/  election,  the  electoral  law  was  changed  and  the  "True-Russians" 
/  were  repeatedly  invited  to  "unite"  and  to  "increase  their  mem- 
bership, in  order  to  support  autocracy."  What  v/as  the  new 
result  this  time?  Out  of  the  five  thousand  electors  for  the  whole 
of  Russia,  only  seventy-two  belonged  to  the  "Union  of  the  Rus- 
sian People"!  Thirty-four  of  them  were  made  members  of  the 
Duma,  and  yet  they  were  hardly  able  to  Increase  the  number  of 


uncompromising  adherents  of  autocracy  to  something  like  sixty, 
out  of  four  hundred  and  forty-two.  If  included  with  the  so-called 
"monarchists,"  still  they  do  not  form  the  majority.  When,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  debates  on  the  address  to  the  Tsar  they  proposed 
to  insert  in  the  text  the  title  "autocratic,"  they  were  largely 
outvoted  even  by  this  Duma,  the  "Duma  of  the  land-owners." 
The  governmental  Duma,  refusing  to  the  Tsar  the  title  of  "auto- 
crat," which  in  a  certain  sense  is  still  used  by  him  according  to 
the  existing  law — such  is  the  final  result,  which  proves  definitely  . ,  ' 
that  there  are  no  autocratists  in  Russia  except  a  very  small 
group  of  people,  whose  sincerity  and  integrity  are  subject  to  very 
serious  doubts. 

With  this  conclusion,  we  come  now  to  the  last  point  that  needs 
elucidation.  In  a  country  where  so  astonishingly  few  were  to  be 
won  for  autocratic  restoration,  what  are  then  the  elements  which 
stand  for  political  reaction?  The  middle  classes  being  largely 
liberal,  the  capitalists  not  averse  to  a  constitution,  the  bureau- 
cracy rather  indifferent  but  closely  watching  the  game  and  ready 
to  serve  the  winner,  who  then  are  decidedly  on  the  side  of  the  / 
government?  It  is  the  nobility  and  the  gentry.  This  class  wouldV 
lose  very  much  from  the  impending  social  reform,  as  much  as 
the  autocracy  would  lose  from  political  reform.  In  their  grave 
peril,  both  decaying  orders  become  natural  allies.  Of  course, 
even  here  natural  interests  are  very  far  from  being  identical. 
Now  and  then,  autocracy  in  its  struggle  for  self-preservation, 
gives  up  the  defense  of  the  nobles'  privileges.  Thus,  half  a  cen- 
tury ago,  by  the  great  Emancipation  Act,  it  destroyed  the  very 
foundations  of  the  social  authority  of  nobility.  And  there  was  a 
moment  in  the  present  struggle  when  autocracy  seemed  ready 
to  endorse  the  Constitutional  Democratic  program  of  the  com- 
pulsory sale  of  land,  on  the  ground  that  this  measure,  if  done 
at  all,  should  be  done  by  the  grace  of  the  Tsar. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  nobility  would  easily  be  won  for  a 
constitution,  if  only  the  political  reform  could  be  carried  out 
without  the  social  one.  It  was  conspirators  among  the  nobility 
who,  a  century  ago,  first  demanded  a  constitutional  charter.  Had 
such  a  charter  been  conceded  then,  it  certainly  would  have  had  a 
more  or  less  outspoken  aristocratic  character.  But  the  Russian 
laobility  proved  powerless  to  win  a  constitution  by  themselves 
ilone.  And  now,  after  new  social  elements  have  come  to  the 
'ront,   it  would    be   too   late,   would   be   impossible,   to   separate 


political  from  social  reform.  The  new  order  of  things  must  neces- 
tvirlly  be  at  once  constitutional  and  democratic. 

According  to  the  differences  just  stated,  the  parts  played  by 
autocracy  and  nobility  in  their  alliance  were  unlike,  and  it 
was  the  nobility  that  got  the  better  of  It.  While  the  exer- 
tions of  the  autocracy  proved  fruitless,  the  nobility,  with 
much  less  of  ostentation,  achieved  far  more  positive  results. 
They  likewise  started  a  private  organization,  under  the  name 
of  the  Council  of  the  United  Nobility."  But  the  political 
activity  of  this  "Council"  did  not  awaken  much  attention  at 
the  beginning,  and  was  even  purposely  kept  half  secret.  The 
"Council"  did  not  care  for  any  open  propaganda;  it  preferred  to 
use  its  connections  at  court,  and  with  them  as  Its  intermediary, 
to  act  directly  upon  the  Tsar.  This  policy  proved  successful. 
The  "Council"  has  played  a  decisive  part  in  the  all-Important 
events  of  the  last  two  years.  Nearly  all  the  demands  of  the 
nobles  are  satisfied  by  the  Government.  It  was  owing  to  their 
Instance  that  a  special  kind  of  court-martial  was  organized  by 
Mr.  Stolypln,  after  the  dissolution  of  the  first  Duma.  The  sec- 
ond Duma  succeeded  in  abolishing  these  abominable  courts,  but 
they  are  now  reestablished  in  a  new  form  which  has  made  them 
independent  of  the  legislative  power  of  the  present  Duma.  The 
same  "Council  of  United  Nobility"  urged  the  Tsar  to  Introduce 
a  special  police  service  for  the  defense  of  the  landlords  and  their 
estates.  This  new  army  of  "watchmen"  was  immediately  organ- 
ized at  great  expense  to  the  treasury.  Of  course,  agrarian 
troubles  did  not  make  it  impossible  for  the  landlords  to  dwell 
on  their  estates.  It  is  common  now  to  hear  of  country  houses 
transformed  into  veritable  castles,  manned  with  armed  forces 
hired  from  Caucasian  warrior  tribes,  to  protect  the  noble  homes. 
On  some  estates  searchlights  are  actually  used  at  night  to  disclose 
the  invisible  foes  who  come  to  burn  the  house  or  even  to  blow 
up  its  inhabitants. 

Naturally  such  tension  cannot  last  indefinitely.  Therefore  the 
landlords  insist  upon  a  thorough  change  in  the  whole  agrarian 
policy  of  the  Government.  And  here  again  the  "Council"  has 
gained  a  complete  triumph.  For  many  years  the  policy  of  the 
Government  has  consisted  in  keeping  the  peasantry  quite  apart 
from  the  other  social  orders.  The  "tax-payers"  were  to  be  pre- 
served In  a  state  of  absolute  separation  from  the  "lords";  and 
their  whole  course  of  life,  their  standards  and  habits,  their  views 
of  property,  family,  and  law,  were  to  be  peculiar  to  themselves. 


The  results,  as  we  have  seen  them,  proved  disastrous  to  the 
landlords  themselves.  So  the  nobles  came  to  realize  that  it  was  a 
source  of  continual  (Janger  to  preserve  in  their  near  neighbor- 
hood the  isolated  existence  of  agrarian  savages.  And  the  "Coun- 
cil^ of  Nobility,"  not  satisfied  with  endorsing  the  'liberal  efytor  ^ 
the  equalization  of  peasants  with  the  other  social  groups, 
decided  to  change  abruptly  the  very  foundation  of  their  social 
existence.  The  primitive  agrarian  collectivism  of  the  peasant 
communes  was  now  made  responsible  for  all  social  and  agrarian 
troubles.  The  nobles  wished  this  collectivism  changed  to  a 
rggime  of  private  property.  And  the  Government,  in  compliance 
with  their  wishes,  is  now  starting  a  new  agrarian  policy  which 
will  doubtless  revolutionize  the  masses  more  effectively  than 
anything  else,  because  it  provokes  the  social  struggle  of  the  rich 
and  the  poor  in  its  most  venomous  form.  Of  course  the  attention 
of  the  peasants  will  thus  be  drawn  from  the  landlords'  estates 
to  their  own  internal  disputes. 

But  the  new  policy  was  intended  to  take  the  place  of  the 
agrarian  program  proposed  by  the  opposition.  In  order  to  win 
for  it  national  representation,  the  entire  composition  of  the 
Duma  was  to  be  changed.  This  became  now  the  chief  object  of 
the  reactionary  clique.  The  "Council  of  Nobility"  worked  out  a 
scheme  which  is  now  in  process  of  being  completely  executed  by 
the  ministry.  The  Duma  was  to  be  dissolved,  on  the  pretext  of 
its  "revolutionary"  disposition.  A  new  electoral  law  was  then 
to  be  published,  securing  the  majority  of  representation  for  the 
land-owners.  Then  a  new  Duma  was  to  be  summoned  on  the 
principle  of  the  new  franchise. 

This  scheme  was  quite  ready  after  the  dissolution  of  the  first 
Duma.  But  Mr.  Stolypin  was  not  yet  to  be  won  for  the  abolition 
of  the  existing  franchise,  because  it  was  guaranteed  by  the 
"Fundamental  Law"  and  could  not  be  changed  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  Duma.  It  was  then  decided,  as  a  first  step,  to  change 
only  those  parts  of  the  Law  which  could  be  altered  by  means  of 
an  "authentic"  explanation  of  the  Law  by  the  senate.  Measures 
were  also  taken  to  influence  the  elections,  the  government  being 
sure  of  having  the  upper  hand.  To  the  general  astonishment, 
the  country  sent  to  the  second  Duma  a  representation  much 
more  radical  than  to  the  first  one.  About  two  hundred  members 
belonged  to  different  socialistic  groups,  some  one  hundred  were 
Constitutional  Democrats,  while  no  more  than  a  hundred  took 
seats  on  the  governmental  side.     Then  the  "Union  of  the  Rua- 

23 


Hlan  People"  came  to  the  rescue.  They  began  at  once  a  cam- 
imlgn  against  the  "rebellious"  Duma;  anil  though  now  even  the 
extreme  parties  were  much  more  moderate  In  their  opposition, 
the  government  decided  to  dissolve  the  second  Duma  as  soon  as 
the  electoral  law  was  ready  In  the  Home  Office.  Even  to  take 
precautions  was  scorned  at  this  time,  and  no  effort  was  made  to 
preserve  even  the  external  show  of  legality.  The  Duma  was  dis- 
solved upon  the  demand  for  the  extradition  of  all  socialist 
democratic  members,  before  it  had  time  to  give  any  answer. 
Simultaneously  with  the  dissolution,  the  new  electoral  law  of 
.lune  20,  1{)()7,  was  published,  and  thus  the  "Fuudameiital  Law" 
was  openly  violated  for  the  benefit  of  the  nobles.  According  to 
the  new  franchise,  about  thirty  thousand  large  proprietors 
received  the  iTgHl  t"  '^^^^^  t_l>£jmajprity  of  the  third  Duma.  iPrac- 
tically  no  more  than  nineteen  thousand  came  to  the  polls,  and 
they  chose  for  the  electoral  colleges  more  than  half  of  the  elec- 
tors for  the  whole  of  Russia,  2,G18  out  of  5,160.  The  remaining 
2,542  might  belong  entirely  to  the  opposition;  the  majority  was 
in  advance  assured  to  the  large  land-owners.  Thus  there  is  no 
exaggeration  in  saying  that  the  majority  of  the  present  Duma  is 
elected  by  19,000  proprietors  of  the  larger  landed  estates.  They 
control  300  and  odd  members,  while  cmly  100  to  150  members  rep- 
resent large  democratic  masses  and  belong  to  the  opposition. 
Sonne  of  them,  as,  for  Instance,  the  St.  Petersburg  delegates,  are 
chosen  by  a  larger  vote  (20,000  each)  than  all  the  three  hundred 
members  of  the  majority. 

The  change  of  the  electoral  law  and  the  composition  of  the  new- 
Duma  are,  of  course,  the  most  brilliant  achievements  of  the 
"United  Nobility."  The  national  representation  is  now  at  last 
brought  into  an  artificial  harmony  with  the  interests  of  the 
ruling  classes.  But  now  that  this  result  is  accomplished,  what  can 
be  their  reason  for  objection  to  the  principle  of  national  repre- 
sentation? Is  it  not  much  better  to  be  independent  of  the  good 
will  of  the  Tsar  for  protection,  while  enjoying  at  the  same  time  a 
legal  share  in  legislation  and  in  the  control  of  finance?  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  why  should  autocracy  insist  upon  an  immediate 
and  formal  restoration,  as  long  as  it  keeps  in  its  pov/er  the 
"obedient"  Duma? 

As  a  result,  we  now  witness  a  process  of  mutual  accommoda- 
tion between  the  autocracy  and  the  landed  gentry.  The  govern- 
nent  consents  to  withdraw  or  to  postpone  the  project  for  a 
democratic   extension  of  the  franchise   in   local   self-government, 

24 


and  Is  now  ready  to  leave  this  local  franchise  in  the  happy  pos- 
session of  the  same  ruling  classes  which  now  form  the  majority 
of  the  national  representation.  It  is  also  ready  to  start  a  new 
agrarian  policy,  according  to  the  wishes  of  the  land-owners. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  nobles  do  not  pretend  to  dispute  in  prin- 
ciple the  autocratic  rights  and  privileges.  They  are  quite  ready 
to  admit,  in  theory,  that  the  "historical  power"  of  the  Tsar  re- 
mains what  it  ever  was,  and  that  the  Tsar  preserves  his  "free- 
will" in  dealing  with  the  "Fundamental  Law"  of  the  Empire,  as 
he  dealt  with  it  on  June  20,  1907,  to  their  great  benefit. 

Thus  a  kind  of  political  equilibrium  is  certainly  attained.  The 
immediate  danger  that  the  national  representation  is  to  be  abol- 
ished entirely,  is  now  averted.  And  this  is  the  consoling  feature 
in*the  situation.  But  is  this  equilibrium  stable?  Is  the  collision 
of  class  interests  awakened  by  the  revolution,  now  over,  and  is 
a  "peaceful  renovation"  of  Russia  likely  to  begin  with  the  third 
Duma?  After  all  we  have  said,  we  cannot  answer  these  questions 
in  a  positive  waJ^ 

If  any  conclusion  may  be  drawn  from  our  preceding  analysis, 
it  must  be  this:  the  struggle  for  a  constitution  became  a  violent 
class  struggle,  with  all  its  embitterment  and  mutual  hatred. 
Great  masses  arose  to  the  consciousness  of  the  real  cause  of 
their  social  misery,  and  have  learned  to  know  who  are  their  real 
friends  and  enemies.  If  the  revolution  in  Russia  has  lost  some- 
thing of  its  external  dramatic  character,  it  is  not  because  the 
movement  has  been  obliterated,  but  because  it  now  strikes  much 
deeper  root  in  the  lower  social  strata.  The  r^l  and  the  terVibie' 
dramatic  sense  of  the  events  which  may  still  unroll  before  your 
eyes,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  does  not  confine  itself  to  the  rise 
and  fall  of  certain  "heroes"  or  great  personages,  whose  fate  you 
maj'  follow  with  interest.  And  it  is  not  exhausted  by  some  ap- 
palling statistics  of  people  shot  or  hanged,  houses  burned,  servants 
of  the  Tsar  blown  up  or  assassinated,  conspiracies  discovered  and 
the  like.  The  interest  of  the  struggle  lies  much  deeper.  The 
social  composition  of  the  future  Russia  is  now  at  stake.  The 
fate  of  centuries  to  come  is  now  being  determined.  And  this 
explains  why  the  masses,  silent  and  mute  as  they  may  appear, 
put  all  their  heart,  all  their  hope,  into  the  issue  of  the  present 
movement,  and  why  the  movement  cannot  end  until,  in  one  way 
or  in  another,  its  main  problems  are  settled. 

And  what  are  the  forces  that  try  to  hold  it  in  check?  The 
alliance  of  the  two  decaying  political  powers  for  their  own  self- 

25 


y 


defeiiso  cannot  obstruct  the  royal,  historical  road  the  nation  Is 
following.  The  childish  explanation  of  the  movrment,  as  In- 
itiated and  fostered  by  a  foreign  or  antl-Russlan  Intrigue,  cannot 
do  away  with  Its  deeper  causes.  And  (he  foolish  Idea  that  the 
peasants  of  our  conimiints  can  bo  changed  at  once  Into  private 
proprietors,  can  only  cause  new  IVrtiunt  In  our  villages,  honey- 
combed with  poverty  and  famine  as  they  are.  In  short,  wherever 
we  turn  or  look,  we  only  meet  with  new  trouble  to  come,  no- 
where with  any  hope  for  conciliation  and  social  peace. 

That,  I  am  afraid,  is  not  the  message  you  expected  from  me. 
I  would  be  much  happier  myself  if  I  could  answer  your  wish  for 
information  with  words  of  good  hope  and  with  the  glad  tidings 
that  quiet  and  security  have  returned  to  Russia.  But  I  am 
here  to  tell  you  the  truth. 

What  do  I  want  from  you  in  exchange?  As  soon  as  I  left  for 
America,  official  newspai)ers  in  Russia  began  telling  the  He  that  I 
was  coming  to  this  country  in  order  to  get  money  for  my  party. 
This,  as  you  know,  is  their  way  of  discrediting  everything  and  every- 
body connected  with  the  movement  for  Freedom  in  Russia.  I  need 
not  refute  them.  But  perhaps  I  did  really  come  here  for  some  kind 
of  help?  Anybody  acquainted  with  the  large  liberality  which  is 
practised  here  for  everything  that  is  humanely  good,  would  not 
be  shocked  or  surprised  by  the  supposition,  and  why  not?  Every 
foreigner  who  comes  to  this  "Sweet  land  of  Liberty"  is  supposed 
to  want  from  her  infinitely  more  than  he  can  offer  to  her  on  his 
part.  "Well,  then,  I  agree,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that  I  really 
want  from  you  something  very  precious  and  of  very  great 
moment  for  my  country.  I  am  wooing  here  for  your  human  sym- 
pathy; sympathy  with  all  the  enormous  pain  and  suffering  of  the 
poor  and  down-trodden  in  my  country;  sympathy  with  every  noble 
exertion  which  seeks  to  put  an  end  to  all  this  pain  and  suffer- 
ing. And  what  can  I  give  you  back  for  It?  Nothing,  ladles  and 
gentlemen,  nothing  at  all  except  this  very  feeling  of  the  heart 
which  ennobles  everyone  who  is  capable  of  being  affected  by  It. 
If  I  really  succeed  in  arousing  in  you  once  more  that  sympathy 
for  human  suffering,  well  then,  you  and  I  shall  have  reached  the 
level  where  no  difference  in  habits,  in  ways  of  thinking,  no 
varying  shades  of  expression,  can  prevent  us  from  feeling  our- 
selves an  Integral  part  of  a  great  whole,  which  never  can  feel 
quite  happy  while  one  of  Its  members  is  suffering  anywhere.  I 
appeal  to  you  Ih  the  name  of  that  great  whole,  humanity;  and  In 

36 


doing  80,  I  am  quite  sure  to  give  you  back  as  much  as  I  receive. 
At  least,  for  myself,  I  do  not  know  of  anything  so  apt  to  elevate 
one's  sentiment  and  one's  Intelligence  to  higher  spheres  of  exis- 
tence as  that  feeling  which  keeps  one  In  touch  with  new  worlds 
of  humanity.  That  is  why  I  was  happy  to  cross  the  ocean  in 
order  to  address  you  this  evening — an  occasion  which  I  shall 
never  forget. 


Questions 

At  the  close  of  Professor  Milyoukov's  address,  the  meeting 
was  thrown  open  to  questions,  all  of  which  were  submitted  in 
writing  and  signed.  Professor  Milyoukov  replied  extemporane- 
ously, as  follows: 

Question:  To  what  extent  is  the  public  discussion  of  political 
questions  permitted  in  Russia? 

Signed,   Judge  Samuel  Greenbaum. 

Milyoukov:  Public  discussion  in  Russia  is  allowed  to  a  very 
limited  extent.  The  law  authorizes  public  meetings,  but  the 
greater  part  of  Russia  is  now  ruled  by  '"exceptional  law,"  and 
this  exceptional  law  puts  quite  out  of  force  even  the  temporary 
law  which  we  still  have  and  which  permits  public  discussion. 
No,  practically  the  only  time  at  which  public  discussion  is  per- 
mitted in  Russia  is  at  the  moment  of  elections;  and  the  only 
places  where  public  discussion  is  practised  even  then  is  in  the 
large  cities — indeed,  almost  exclusively  in  the  two  capitals,  Mos- 
cow and  St.  Petersburg.  As  far  as  the  provincial  towns  are  con- 
cerned, the  government  does  its  best  to  forbid  public  meetings. 
So  I  may  say  that  the  possibility  of  public  discussion  in  Russia 
is  very  limited. 

Question:  Are  the  Russian  peasants  fit  to  solve  the  present 
political  problems  of  their  country? 

Signed,  Nathan  Eseb  and  two  others. 

Milyoukov:  That  is  a  difHcult  question  to  answer.  But  I 
must  tell  you  that  if  my  answer  seems  indefinite  and  not  entirely 
satisfactory,  it  is  not  for  the  reason  suggested  by  my  friend  In 
the  first  question.  Two  years  ago  I  was  in  America,  and  to 
speak  freely  was  far  more  dangerous  for  me  then  than  It  Is  now. 

27 


I  dun't  think  that  1  could  possibly  withhold  my  free  opinion  on 
any  subject.  (Applause.)  So.  If  my  answer  to  this  or  that 
question  is  unsatisfactory,  you  must  seek  for  some  other  explana- 
tion than  Is  suggested  in  the  first  qut-stlon. 

This  second  question  Is  difficult  to  answer  because  it  Is  formu- 
lated in  such  general  terms.  "Are  the  Russian  peasants  fit  to 
solve  the  present  political  questions  of  their  country?"  The 
Russian  peasants  are  much  more  interested  in  their  agrarian 
questions  than  In  any  political  question  in  RusFia,  and  yet  pre- 
cisely for  this  reason  it  is  possible  that  in  an  indirect  way  it  is 
the  peasants  who  help  most  toward  solviug  the  political  issues 
or  problems.  You  must  recognize  that  the  workingman  in  Rus- 
sia has  always  been  perfectly  powerless  to  get  things  done,  or  to 
command  the  results  which  an  agrarian  trouble  or  outbreak  has 
always  brought  with  it.  So,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  a  rather 
spontaneous  way  the  peasants  are  the  most  important  moving 
force  in  Russia,  but  certainly  the  peasants  by  themselves  are  not 
able  to  solve  the  political  problems  of  Russia. 

Question:  What  does  Professor  Milyoukov  think  about  the 
Jewish  question  in  Russia?  What  will  the  Third  Duma  do  in 
that  matter? 

Signed,  S.  Lubarsky. 

Milyoukov:  Another  question  has  been  handed  in,  to  the 
same  effect:  "What  is  the  prospect  of  equal  political  rights  for 
the  Jews  in  Russia?"  My  party,  the  Constitutional  Democrats, 
act  with  the  Jews.  They  steadily  supported  us  in  the  elections 
for  the  first  two  Dumas,  and  we  are  the  only  party  that  prac- 
tically introduced  the  question  in  the  shape  of  an  appeal  for 
equal  rights  for  the  Jews.  Just  as  soon  as  we  had  gained  the 
majority,  we  would  certainly  have  carried  this  point  and  have 
brought  the  Jewish  question  to  an  issue,  but  you  will  see  from 
what  I  have  said  to-night  about  the  present  Duma,  about  its 
present  party  composition  and  its  character  as  representing  class 
interest,  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  this  Duma's  solving  the 
Jewish  question.  I  will  say  even  more:  If  anything  is  done 
about  the  Jewish  question  in  the  present  Duma,  it  will  be  done 
by  people  whose  desire  is  to  change  the  position  of  the  Russian 
Jew  for  the  w^orse,  and  not  for  the  better;  and  perhaps  the  best 
interest  of  the  Jew^s  demands  that  the  question  be  not  approached 
in   the   present   Duma.     It   must   be  approached,    attacked   and 

28 


settled,  but  in  another  way.  Certainly,  as  to  our  party,  we  are 
with  the  Jews,  and  we  will  continue  to  be  with  them.  The  only 
true  representatives  of  the  Jewish  people  in  Russia  are  the  rep- 
resentatives of  our  party.     (Applause.) 

Question:  What  was  the  direct  cause  of  the  great  massacres 
of  the  Jews  in  Russia? 

Signed,  Alexander  Ular. 

Milyoukov:  This  takes  us  back  to  the  events  of  some  forty 
years  ago.  I  think  the  Jewish  massacres  were  first  brought  into 
use  as  political  means,  or  a  political  weapon,  by  Plehve.  I  believe 
that  the  idea  of  Mr.  Plehve  was  to  disseminate  the  view  of  the 
Russian  revolution  which  I  have  just  quoted  in  ray  remarks, 
namely,  that  the  revolution  was  brought  about  by  Jews  and 
foreigners.  According  to  this  view  the  Jews  were  to  be  blamed, 
and  the  Jews  must  be  stifled  in  order  that  the  revolution  might 
be  stopped;  and  this  feeling  obtains  until  the  present  day.  So, 
I  think,  the  same  Mr.  Plehve,  when  he  returned  to  power  twenty 
years  after  beginning  this  propaganda,  took  it  up  again  and 
tried  the  massacre  of  the  Jews.  The  practice  of  the  central  gov- 
ernment is  quite  evident  in  this  matter,  and  I  must  answer  the 
question  by  repeating  what  I  have  already  said — such  a  political 
system  and  such  political  expedients  bring  as  a  necessary  result 
the  division  of  Russia  into  two  hostile  camps. 

Question:  Who  framed  the  Viborg  Resolution,  and  is  it  true 
that  the  Constitutional  Democratic  party  afterward  repudiated 
this  resolution? 

Signed,  John  Colliee. 

Milyoukov:  In  reply  I  shall  state  rather  my  personal  view 
than  the  views  of  my  party.  The  manifesto  was  framed  by  us. 
At  the  moment  when  the  Viborg  resolution  was  framed  and 
signed,  the  First  Duma,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  had  been 
dissolved.  We  considered,  and  I  think  it  was  a  fact,  that  the 
Duma  had  been  dissolved  violently  and  without  the  observance 
of  existing  legal  forms.  Such  a  dissolution  was  not  in  accord 
with  the  constitutional  principle. 

Well,  what  was  the  possible  reply  to  such  an  act?  The  extreme 
party  planned  an  insurrection — an  uprising  of  the  army  and  the 
fleet.     We  knew  but  too  well  that  such  an  uprising  would  bring 

29 


only  a  further  Increase  of  reacliouary  measures,  and  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  lives  of  soldiers  and  sailors.  So  my  party  decided 
not  to  reply  In  that  way  to  the  Illegal  violence  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  we  employed  the  only  means  remaining — a  means 
whii-h  in  Anglo-Saxon  countries  has  been  considered  constitu- 
tional, as  an  extreme  measuie  which  a  constitutional  group  may 
take  when  it  is  attacked.  We  proi>osed  passive  resistance;  and 
the  extremists  endorsed  our  proposition  because  they  recognized 
that  at  that  moment  they  were  too  weak  to  answer  the  govern- 
ment in  any  other  way.  Both  of  us  felt  that  this  was  the  best 
way  to  preserve  our  unity  in  the  face  of  reaction.  Then  the 
extremists  tried  other  methods,  in  which  we  did  not  unite  with 
them;  they  tried  outbreaks  in  various  towns.  Our  view  proved 
correct,  and  the  outbreaks  were  easily  put  down.  Thereupon 
the  government,  very  much  frightened,  began  its  counter-revolu- 
tionary movements,  which  I  have  described. 

Xow,  for  the  second  part  of  the  question.  At  the  moment 
when  we  framed  the  resolution  we  likewise  put  it  forward,  and 
ir  was  signed  by  a  majority  of  the  First  Duma.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  passive  resistance  movement,  which  was  inaugu- 
rated by  the  resolution,  we  laid  down  one  condition,  namely, 
that  the  passive  resistance  must  be  the  resistance  of  a  collective 
unity,  and  not  an  Individual  resistance;  for  individual  resist- 
ance could  have  brought  no  result.  And  in  order  to  be  a  col- 
lective movement  it  was  necessary  first  to  prepare  for  the  move- 
ment, and  then  to  start  it  in  the  whole  of  Russia.  So  in  the 
spring  the  Viborg  Manifesto  was  signed  by  our  party,  and  we 
used  the  two  or  three  summer  months  to  prepare  for  the  move- 
ment of  passive  resistance  throughout  Russia  and  to  determine 
whether  there  was  any  chance  of  victory. 

Well,  the  members  of  our  party  took  an  active  part  in  the 
preparation  for  the  movement.  Then  we  met  in  congress  again, 
discussed  the  situation  once  more,  and  decided  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  start  actively  a  movement  of  passive  resistance,  and 
that  we  must  renounce  the  bringing  into  execution  of  the  Viborg 
Manifesto  until  the  time  was  more  ripe.  We  must  first  prepare 
the  population.  Therefore  we  renounced  the  bringing  into  action 
of  this  principle,  which  as  a  principle  we  acknowledged  always, 
and  do  still  acknowledge  as  a  principle  necessary  for  constitu- 
tional government. 

30 


Question:    Will  the  Professor  tell  us  why  the  present  Duma 
does  not  think  it  necessary  to   prevent  the  prosecution   of  the 
members  of  the  former  Duma  by  the  government? 
Signed,  L.  Taylor. 

MUyoukov :  Well,  you  know  the  situation  of  the  Third  Duma, 
so  I  have  only  to  repeat  what  I  have  already  said.  Besides, 
under  any  circumstances  the  Duma  could  not  do  what  you  sug- 
gest. No,  I  think  that  from  its  oion  point  of  view  the  govern- 
ment was  right  from  the  beginning.  The  only  manner  in  which 
the  issue  could  possibly  have  been  pushed  through,  was  a  trial, 
where  we  could  openly  proclaim  our  defense,  as  the  members  of 
our  party,  the  members  of  the  First  Duma,  did  in  fact.  That  is 
to  say,  they  denied  to  the  Russian  tribunal  the  unconditioned 
right  to  judge  them,  and  they  offered  arguments,  which  I  have 
already  brought  to  your  attention.  So  my  answer  is,  that  from 
the  point  of  view  of  our  party,  interference  by  the  Duma  was 
liable  to  block  any  trial  in  court  at  all,  and  therefore  we  did 
not  interfere.  Even  had  my  party  been  in  the  majority  we 
should  not  have  interfered. 

Question:  Does  the  Professor  really  think  that  freedom  in 
Russia  can  be  secured  by  peaceful  means?  The  constitutional 
members  of  the  First  Duma  believed  in  the  same  means,  and  / 
they  are  in  prison  now.  No,  I  believe  that  force  can  only  be  ' 
overpowered  by  force,  and  those  who  believe  that  freedom  in 
Russia  can  be  brought  about  by  making  speeches  are  bitterly 
mistaken. 

Signed,  Kbause. 

MUyoukov :  I  think  I  have  already  answered  that  question  in 
my  present  address,  and  anyone  who  will  read  it  when  it  is 
printed,  will  find  my  answer  in  more  substantial  form  than  I 
have  been  able  to  give  it  in  words  to-night.  The  substance  of 
my  answer  is,  that  it  is  quite  true  that  force  can  only  be  over- 
come by  force.  (Applause.)  Only,  I  do  not  endorse  that  policy 
which  takes  for  force  what  is  really  lack  of  force,  and  brings 
about,  instead  of  victory,  only  a  mere  appearance  of  results. 
(Applause.) 

Question:  What  are  the  possibilities  of  Russia's  ever  becoming 
a  republic? 

Signed,  Alexander  Ulab. 

31 


Milyoukov:  Well,  I  am  not  a  prophet,  and  I  will  not  undertake 
to  speak  for  the  future  times.  Very  likely  the  antl-dynastic  feel- 
ing, which  is  great  in  Russia,  will  grow,  if  the  mistakes  of  the 
Rovernnient  are  to  be  indtlinitcly  repeated.  I  do  not  know  what 
will  be  the  upshot,  whether  a  new  dynasty,  or  what.  I  do  not 
know.  I  must  state  that  this  possibility  Is  out  of  the  reach  of 
practical  politics  at  the  present  day.  It  is  quite  out  of  the  ques- 
tion now  to  think  of  introducing  a  commonwealth  into  Russia. 
1  think  myself  that  the  greatest  success  we  could  achieve  would 
be  the  bringing  about  of  a  constitutional  and  representative  re- 
gime, but  all  these  things  have  been  too  difilcult  for  accomplish- 
ment at  once.  Of  course  we  do  not  despair;  along  such  lines  we 
shall   go  until  we  reach   the  goal.      (Applause.) 

Bishop  Pottek: 

Ladies  and  gentlemen:  We  thank  Professor  Jlilyouliov  for 
his  coming,  and  for  the  scholarly  presentation  of  facts  which 
he  has  given  us  to-night.  I  think  it  would  be  a  gracious  thing, 
before  he  leaves  this  hall,  to  give  him  a  vote  of  thanks.  So  on 
behalf  of  The  Civic  Fohu.m  and  of  this  large,  repi'esentative.  and 
deeply  interested  audience,  I  beg  to  express  to  the  Professor  the 
appreciation  which  we  feel  for  his  magnificent  address,  and  for 
his  statesman-like  presentation  of  facts  which  we  have  all  of  us 
longed  to  know,  and  before  this  evening  could  not  know. 

(The  vote  of  thanks  was  unanimously  carried.) 
Adjournment. 


32 


CIVIC  FORUM  ADDRESSES 

WITH  PORTRAITS 
Volume  I. 

Season  of  1907-1908 


No.  1.     PUBLIC  OFFICE, 

The  Idea  of  Public  Office 

Hon.  Charles  E.  Hughes, 

Governor  of  the  State  of  New  York 
Public  Office  in  Relation  to  Public  Opinion 
Hon.  David  J.  Brewer, 

Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 

No.  2.     THE     STRUGGLE     BETWEEN     GRAFT     AND 
DEMOCRACY, 

Hon.  William  H.  Langdon, 

District  Attorney  for  the  City  and  County  of  San  Francisco 

The  Vermin  in  the  Dark 

Poem  by  Edwin  Markham, 

Author  of  "  The  Man  with  the  Hoe."  etc. 

No.  3.     CONSTITUTIONAL  GOVERNMENT  FOR  RUSSIA, 
Professor  Paul  Milyoukov, 

Member  of  the  Third  Duma  for  St.  Petersburg 

No.  4.     THOU  SHALT  NOT  STEAL, 

Hon.  William  Jennings  Bryan, 

Lincoln,  Nebraska 

No.  5.     THE  ERA  OF  CONSCIENCE, 
Hon.  Joseph  W.  Folk, 

Governor  of  the  State  of  Missouri 

No.  6      PRACTICAL  COMMUNISM— WORK  AND  BREAD. 
Frederik  Van  Eeden, 

A   Working  Sociologist  and  the  foremost  Poet  and  Author  of 
Holland. 

The  remaining  four  Addresses  of  this  season  will  be  issued  in  March 
and  April, 

Price,  lo  cents   each,  postpaid 
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VICE- 
Hon.  William  H.  Taft, 
Sfcretar>'  of  War 

Hon.  Oscar  S.  Straus, 

Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor 

Rev   Edward  Everett  Hale,  D.  D. , 

Cliaplain  of  the  United  States  Senate 

Right  Rev.  Henry  C.  Potter,  D.D. , 
Episcopal  Bishop  of  New  York 

President  Samuel  Gompers, 
American  Federation  of  Labor 

President  John  Mitchell, 

United  Mine  Workers  of  America 

BOARD 

Robert  J.  Collier, 

Editor  Collier's  Weekly 

Elgin  R.  L.  Gould, 

President  City  and  Suburban 
Homes  Company 

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President  Chase  National  Bank 

George  McAneny, 
President  City  Club 

Emerson  McMillin, 
Banker 


PRESIDENTS 

Judge  David  J.  Brewer, 
United  States  Supreme  Court 

Hon.  William  Jennings  Bryan, 

Lincoln,  Nebraska 

Most  Rev.  John  Ireland, 

Archbishop  of  St.  Paul 

Hon.  Nahum  J.  Bachelder, 

Ex-Governor  of  New  Hampshlie 
Master  of  the  National  Farmers'  Grange 

John  Graham  Brooks, 
Cambridge,  Massachusetts 

OF  TRUSTEES 

Marcus  M.  Marks, 

President    National  Association  of 
Clothing  Manufacturers 

Judge  Morgan  J.  O'Brien, 

Formerly  of   the  New  York  State 
Supreme  Court 

James  B.  Reynolds, 

Special  Commissioner  for  President 
Roosevelt 

Isaac  N.  Seligman, 

J.  and  W.  Seligman  &  Co. 


Robert  Erskine  Ely,  Executive  Director 
Elgin  R.  L.  Gould,  Acting  Treasurer 

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